Comments on: How to properly build Magento theme: Skinning, not theming

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:46:40 +0000

Yes its time consuming for me as designer to work in these 2 directories. It would be much simpler to have it in SKIN folder..

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:46:13 +0000

I usually start with Magento's 'blank' theme. The blank theme could use some improvement in providing meaningful ids and classes for every element to make it easier for CSS to select objects.

By: benmarks

benmarks — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:05:38 +0000

With Magento there is nothing that serves clients better than a thorough familiarity with the different modules and how changing one template may impact multiple views.

At Blue Acorn we have found Yoast's SEO-optimized blank theme to be a good starting point for most of our projects. Ultimately it is up to the developer to recognize the complexity of the design with regards to Magento's default themes, and to steer the design in the correct direction or warn the client of the impact on time and cost.

By: Sherrie Rohde

Sherrie Rohde — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:44:50 +0000

Good post. There is a LOT that can be done just with skinning. Take a look at CSS Zen Garden for examples of just how much can be changed without changing any of the actual coding.

By: Nathan L Smith

Nathan L Smith — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:20:39 +0000

Good post. I'd have to agree with you on your main point. Changing stuff in app/design/frontend is probably always going to be needed based on customer requirements, though you're right that it's time consuming.

If Magento had better documentation this might not be such a problem.